Strengthening its commitment to the secondary market, Equifax has announced that it is working with BlackBox Logic to give investors greater transparency into borrower credit health. ABS Credit Risk Insight Direct, Equifax's premier data solution for the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market, now leverages BlackBox Logic performance data on more than 21 million loans across nearly 7,600 deals. By linking anonymous borrower credit information to BlackBox Logic's extensive MBS performance data, ABS Credit Risk provides a more complete picture of the collateral health underlying non-agency MBS.
This relationship represents the latest step Equifax Capital Markets has taken to equip investors with powerful data solutions. ABS Credit Risk Insight provides leading indicators of loan performance such as updated credit scores and detail on all mortgage and home equity payments, owner-occupancy and performance on past mortgages. Now, Equifax's solution statistically matches up-to-date borrower credit information to BlackBox Logic's database of MBS performance data to help investors improve model accuracy, better predict loan default and prepayment and enhance deal surveillance.
"More than ever before, investors are focused on addressing industry and policy requirements while looking for ways to increase their confidence in the collateral behind securities. This is where solutions that provide transparency into collateral risk play a critical role," said Steve Albert, vice president of Equifax Capital Markets. "The combined strength of Equifax's industry-leading solution and BlackBox Logic's extensive loan-level MBS data gives investors the insight they need to better predict securitized loan performance and make more confident trading decisions."
In addition to making ABS Credit Risk Insight available to investors using various types of loan-level data, Equifax continues to find new ways to enhance its data solutions for the secondary market. Over the past year, Equifax has added several new and unique data variables to its ABS Credit Risk product line, including owner-occupancy and bankruptcy indicators as well as the FICO credit score and the FICO Mortgage Industry Option known as the BEACON Mortgage Score. VantageScore, a consumer credit scoring model developed by Equifax and the other major credit reporting companies, is also available through ABS Credit Risk Insight Direct.
"Equipping investors with tools that allow them to conduct more granular analysis of collateralized mortgage obligations is essential for this industry," said Wyck Brown, chief marketing officer of BlackBox Logic. "Working together, we are delivering to the secondary market powerful solutions that leverage very unique data attributes and highly accurate risk models."
ABS Credit Risk Insight is part of Equifax's suite of Capital Markets solutions that empowers lenders and investors to make buy/sell decisions with the most up-to-date borrower and property value information available.
For more information, visit www.equifax.com or www.bbxlogic.com.
